IL Ventures raising $100 million for second deep-tech fund
Fund expands focus on AI, robotics, and supply chain innovation at Seed stage.
The deep-tech fund IL Ventures, founded by Yoni Heilbronn and Elad Frenkel, is raising a second fund, Calcalist has learned. The new fund is expected to reach $100 million, a significant increase from the $30 million managed in their previous fund.
IL Ventures focuses on deep technologies in areas such as robotics, logistics, digital transformation combined with AI, and supply chain innovation. The fund invests primarily at the earliest stages, usually at the Seed level, with an emphasis on startups introducing new technologies into traditional industries.
Heilbronn and Frenkel, childhood friends and former colleagues in Unit 8200, also worked together at Nice. Frenkel later became CEO of Aqwise, leading the company from a young startup to a global enterprise and eventual acquisition. Heilbronn served as CMO at Argus, guiding it from its early days to a sale to Continental for approximately half a billion dollars. Another partner in the fund is Dani Harari, a former commander of Unit 8200 who later served as Senior Vice President at Adama (formerly Makhteshim Agan).
Calcalist has also learned that, in preparation for the second fund, Eugene Kandel, chairman of the Israel Stock Exchange, founder of SNC, and former chairman of the National Economic Council in the Prime Minister's Office, has joined IL Ventures’ advisory committee. In addition, Elad Ziklik, former global director of AI at Oracle, and Orit Stav, a former senior executive at Siemens and current director at prominent public companies including Innoviz, Camtek, and Doral, have joined the advisory board.
IL Ventures, which began operating about four years ago, has invested in companies such as: CaPow, which developed a wireless solution for charging robots in motion and raised $15 million from Toyota last year; Cybord, which uses AI to identify failures and defects in electronic components during assembly; Pickommerce, which developed an autonomous picking and packing robot for e-commerce; and Verstill, which accelerates the aging of alcohol from years to weeks while maintaining precise flavor profiles.
